Hi. My name is Angelo, I live in Sydney Australia and I’d like to welcome you to my blog.

This is the first blog I’ve ever created so things will not be as polished as other blogs. Now why did I create this blog ? It probably goes back to the period between January 2014-March 2014. My family went for a 5-week Christmas holiday, so from the middle of December 2013 to somewhere in the last week of January 2014 I didn’t see my roses. I probably need to mention that I planted 5 roses last 2013 (from May – June) – 4 of them were from potted plants (Just Joey, Dame Elizabeth Murdoch, Baronne Edmond de Rothschild, William Shakespeare 2000) and one was a bareroot (Pope John Paul II).

So at the time of the holiday, my roses were about a little over 6 months old.

What I saw when I came back from the holiday surprised me and brought about a lot of questions :
– There were a lot of blooms, my ‘Pope John Paul II’ had more than 10 I think. But I remember removing ALL the buds for ALL the roses before we left – so did I miss any? Did they really bloom this fast probably due to the heat and restricted watering – I’ve read that roses bloom when in drought conditions (I had a friend come over just once a week to water).
- My ‘Just Joey’ was over 4 feet tall. How tall was it when we left – I couldn’t really remember?
– Because of all the blooms I thought of fertilizing but then I seem to remember fertilizing before we left but not 100% sure if I did and by how much.

If only I had some record of these things like say a blog *wink*.

Anyway, I proceeded to fertilize the roses. For the next 2 months, the ‘Just Joey’ proceeded to grow to more than 6 feet tall. Looking at ‘Just Joey’ with a rose bloom above my head, I thought that they should not have gotten that tall since most of my research have them growing to only 4 feet tall. Then again, I remember people in the forums writing on how their supposedly 4-foot David Austins grew to over 7 feet tall. So another problem I had was that I didn’t know what to expect in Sydney since most of my research were on American/UK websites with different climates. So that’s another reason for the blog, to keep track of how my roses grow in Sydney’s climate.

Oh and one last thing, I remember thinking that I should’ve pruned them just after I came back from the holiday – this might’ve helped in maintaining a reasonable size and probably would’ve been a good idea in Sydney’s climate. Anyway, I’ve read about people doing some drastic summer pruning to keep the rose to a manageable height. I also plan to do that this year and will continue to do so if it works, so it’s quite important for me to keep track of the results.

So basically this blog is where I will keep a record of all the things related to my roses – mainly to remember what works or not, to record of what I’ve done with them, and to keep track of their growth. Hopefully those living in Sydney or in areas with similar climates who happens to read this can get some additional information they can use themselves.